What is the Hard Problem of Consciousness & Why is It Difficult?

[loseyourname]

Catalytic Closure is an emergent property that cannot be reached by adding up the elementary processes that comprise it. There is a random component. Catalytic closure has been SHOWN to occur in chemical and other contexts, as the google search I suggested above will show you. This contradicts the assertion that physical nature is just bare differences and falsifies the "fact" that you assert.

I think Gregg is right to say that physics is the study of relational properties that don't need to be instantiated for physics to be coherent. His analogy between a pure Life world and a pure physical world is dubious if taken literally, but I don't think he meant it that way and I can see why he uses a Life world as an illustration. Perhaps the facts of all other sciences are entailed by these facts of physics - they certainly seem to be. I do know, however, that many of the phenomena studied by other sciences are strongly emergent and cannot be deduced statically from facts of physics. This is especially true of the social and behavioral sciences. I'm having a hard time getting hypnagogue to agree to this, though.

The phrase "bare differences" may not be the best way to describe physical quantities. I've never liked it myself, because physics can certainly study the relations of phenomena that are exactly the same, potentially even in exactly the same state. The thing is, entailment to me doesn't mean the potential to be logically deduced from lower-level physical facts. It just means that a given output is the result of a given input, even if you can potentially get many different outputs and the result is in many ways random.

 

[selfAdjoint]

I suspect that the bare differences was chosen for rhetorical effect, but it does artificially narrow his focus, and just isn't convincing to someone who has a rich background in science. I for one would wonder how he would impose bare differences on topology. How is the difference between a sphere and a torus "bare"

 

[selfAdjoint]

I haven't denied what self-organizing potential has been demonstrated, and certainly polymers and amino acids are examples. But as I pointed out earlier to Saltydog:

". . . those few steps chemistry is capable of doesn't represent what happened, and happens, with life. There organization kept going, and going, and going . . . it is still going. Further, it wasn't just order that the organization produced, it was functioning systems which could operate in support of new systems that would be built on top. Matter alone has never been shown it can act that way spontaneously or even be kicked into [that sort of] "self-organizing gear" without lots of help from scientists."

So it is a specific quality of self organization that cannot be demonstrated, not that self organization cannot happen at all.

I would distinguish "has not been demonstrated" from "cannot be demonstrated"

BTW, what's wrong with the idea there might be an undiscovered organizing principle? Nobody minds considering the possibility of the theoretical Higgs particle, or dark matter, or any other thing that helps explain things.

Well, self-organized criticality IS a new organizing principle; it has taken off because it has testable consequences. People can see it happening. It is also a clear idea that people can grasp, something rare and precious in science .

The article on spontaneous chemical assemblies I linked to is part of a research program in chemistry called the supermolecular program. Since it is demonstrated that SOME chemicals will spontaneously react to form more complex molecules, they have worked to find rational ways to specify what those some chemicals might be. Just as autocatalysis requires patters of internal interactions to work, so these researchers find "algorithms" encoded in the moleculare reactivities which they can follow up. Some of this, while admirably ingenious, seems a little pedestrian to me. Quantum theorists studying self-organization have stronger tools in their kits - renormalization group theorems for example.

Of course you have adopted the "Naw that ain't it" stance, and "that" won't ever be "it" until Galatea rises from the inert chemical bath in that kettle.

 

[Les Sleeth]

Of course you have adopted the "Naw that ain't it" stance, and "that" won't ever be "it" until Galatea rises from the inert chemical bath in that kettle.

Well, I thought you offered a collegial olive branch a few dozen posts ago. Since then, I've not descended into ridicule of your skepticism about what I have come to trust, nor directly confronted you about your beliefs.

To me, collegial means respecting what has convinced another of something; and then, if we are to disagree, it is in the spirit of mutual respect. Those comments above feel like ridicule. Do you really think the basis of my skepticism is a moronic "naw that ain't it"?

Why not put the shoe on the other foot? Are you ready to buy centuries of introspectionists' reports of "something more," along with my testimony, and abandon your own skepticism? My skepticism is not due to a priori beliefs as yours seem to be. I don't "believe" in God and I don't "believe" in the potential of physicalness to self organize itself into a cell (and even less into consciousness). Why?

In the case of God, all I have is an inner "feel" for something that I've experienced many years from mediation. To be fully accurate, there isn't enough information in that experience (not yet anyway) to make me certain that the "something more" is God. If you aren't going to try that experience for yourself, then you aren't going to understand what confidence I have there is "something more" going on behind reality than just physics.

In the case of physicalness being the "creator," I don't see the right evidence in a couple of crucial places. I can imagine a dumb cell might be purely physical, but the self-organizing ability to make it into a cell is not showing itself in physicalness. Physicalist "believers" in my opinion are suffering from the same blind faith they are down on the religious for indulging in. All the examples given for why someone should have faith in matter's self organizing potentials are smoke. No one is even close to demonstrating it, but the a priori commitment to physicalism seems to make people gloss over this huge missing piece.

As for me, since I don't care one iota what the truth turns out to be, I remain free to believe what the evidence indicates (including my inner experience), and to remain skeptical of the exaggerations of "believers."

 

[Canute]

I suspect that the bare differences was chosen for rhetorical effect, but it does artificially narrow his focus, and just isn't convincing to someone who has a rich background in science. I for one would wonder how he would impose bare differences on topology. How is the difference between a sphere and a torus "bare"

It wasn't for rhetorical effect, it is the basis of his argument against physcalism. What he is saying, as Loseyourname said, is that physics studies the relations between things, not the things themselves. In other words, physics has no grounding ontology.

This is equivalent to saying that the universe of subjects and objects has only a dependent existence or, more scientifically, as Bohm and others argue, that it is in effect a hologram. I don't know Bohm well but perhaps one could say that physics studies what is explicate, not what is implicate. Note also that in M-theory there is a sense in which spacetime, and thus all it contains, does not exist. Physics has yet to identify any absolute substance or entity. In more philosophical terms we could say that we still cannot see beyond appearances, or out of Plato's cave, or solve the problem of attributes (of what exists other than appearances).

This is what the issue of bare differences is about. What GR is saying is that physics cannot provide a complete ontological account of the universe, an account of what things actually are, because it studies only the difference between things, not the things themselves. These differences are 'bare' in the sense that they are not ontological differences but simply differences in the appearance of things. In a way this is just a restatement of the 'hard problem' in a different form. GR relates this to the problematic ontology of conscious experience, but it is just relevant to the problematic ontology of matter and energy.

On the biology/life question you might be interested in Varella's work on autopoetic systems. He examines their structure and emergence in the light of the mathematics of George Spencer-Brown, which is founded on the proposition that such structures arise from and consist of, in effect, just bare differences.

 

[saltydog]

Some spontaneous chemical self-organizations in 1994:
http://www.iupac.org/publications/pac/1994/pdf/6610x1961.pdf

Thanks for the reference SelfAdjoint. My background is in Chemistry so I'll feel at home.

Salty

 

[saltydog]

BTW, what's wrong with the idea there might be an undiscovered organizing principle? Nobody minds considering the possibility of the theoretical Higgs particle, or dark matter, or any other thing that helps explain things.

I believe their are and am optimistic future generations will discover them. To avoid redundancy, I won't bring up the banner in the dojo again.

 

[Tournesol]

How do you get from non-linear (or any other) kind of behaviour to qualia ?

 

[selfAdjoint]

It wasn't for rhetorical effect, it is the basis of his argument against physcalism. What he is saying, as Loseyourname said, is that physics studies the relations between things, not the things themselves. In other words, physics has no grounding ontology.

This is equivalent to saying that the universe of subjects and objects has only a dependent existence or, more scientifically, as Bohm and others argue, that it is in effect a hologram. I don't know Bohm well but perhaps one could say that physics studies what is explicate, not what is implicate. Note also that in M-theory there is a sense in which spacetime, and thus all it contains, does not exist. Physics has yet to identify any absolute substance or entity. In more philosophical terms we could say that we still cannot see beyond appearances, or out of Plato's cave, or solve the problem of attributes (of what exists other than appearances).

This is what the issue of bare differences is about. What GR is saying is that physics cannot provide a complete ontological account of the universe, an account of what things actually are, because it studies only the difference between things, not the things themselves. These differences are 'bare' in the sense that they are not ontological differences but simply differences in the appearance of things. In a way this is just a restatement of the 'hard problem' in a different form. GR relates this to the problematic ontology of conscious experience, but it is just relevant to the problematic ontology of matter and energy.

On the biology/life question you might be interested in Varella's work on autopoetic systems. He examines their structure and emergence in the light of the mathematics of George Spencer-Brown, which is founded on the proposition that such structures arise from and consist of, in effect, just bare differences.

Thanks for the explanation Canute. I do grant this aspect of science, and my own belief is that the "ding an sich" is just as much a myth as the homonculus. I can't follow the reasoning that says "since empirical study of the world does not supply us with an ontology, let us derive one by thinking abstractly about consciousness". That is a traditional way to go of course (Hegel and successors) but I have never seen it lead anywhere productive.

 

[Canute]

Thanks for the explanation Canute. I do grant this aspect of science, and my own belief is that the "ding an sich" is just as much a myth as the homonculus. I can't follow the reasoning that says "since empirical study of the world does not supply us with an ontology, let us derive one by thinking abstractly about consciousness". That is a traditional way to go of course (Hegel and successors) but I have never seen it lead anywhere productive.

I'm guessing that "ding an sich" is thing-in-itself. If so then doesn't there have to be at least one thing that is a thing in itself? It seems to me that most things can have no 'in themselves' existence, as you suggest, and have only a dependent existence, but not absolutely everything, otherwise nothing could exist.

Like you I also can't follow the reasoning of the sentence you give. We cannot see the 'in itself' aspect of consciousness by thinking abstractly about it, so to do so will tell us no more about ontology than thinking abstractly about electrons, quarks or branes (or God). All we are thinking about are 'bare differences'. However consciousness is 'what it is like', and as such is the one thing that we can explore without thinking abstractly about it. So in this respect it seems that we can know it as a thing in itself and therefore can, in principle at least, derive an ontology from it.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Let me clarify. Science replaces "is" questions by behavior questions. What the electron "is" doesn't matter to physics, what the electron "does" matters. See Patrick Vanesch's statement in https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=450692&postcount=24 that for him the formalism (statement of what things do, and the consequences of them) precedes and drives the interpretation (statement, suitably qualified of what the things "really" are).

So I don't believe that consciousness is a thing, that could have an independent or prior ontology. I believe it is an emergent behavior of a complex system of other behaviors, getting simpler and smaller in scale as you go down, with maybe other stages of emergence along the way.

My support for this view is the massive amount of evidence that our apparent world that we are conscious of does not correspond closely to the world as we think it does, the .4 second gap between the time our brain starts our arm moving and the time we become aware of the stimulus for that move, the optical illusions, etc. etc.; in fact all the evidence amassed by Dennet in Consciousness Expained. Consciousness is not the way you think, and as a complex, unreliable phenomenon is quite unsuitable as a basis for philosophy.

It doesn't seem to me that I have to come up with my own detailed account of being conscious in order to be mightily skeptical of anyone who says it is primary.

 

[loseyourname]

It wasn't for rhetorical effect, it is the basis of his argument against physcalism. What he is saying, as Loseyourname said, is that physics studies the relations between things, not the things themselves. In other words, physics has no grounding ontology.

Rosenberg confuses this point a bit, though. On the one hand, he seems to mean "bare differences" as simply differences uninstantiated, without a grounding ontology. If that is the case, then yes, that is what physics studies. But to make his analogy with a Life world more cogent, he brings in the stipulation that "bare differences" mean differences that are defined circularly - 'on' is not 'off,' 'off' is not 'on.' This is not the way physical quantities are defined and so, in this sense, his analogy fails.

 

[Canute]

Let me clarify. Science replaces "is" questions by behavior questions. What the electron "is" doesn't matter to physics, what the electron "does" matters.

This is what Rosenberg is saying. Science studies appearances, relations, bare differences.

So I don't believe that consciousness is a thing, that could have an independent or prior ontology.

I don't understand the word "so" here. In what way does your view of consciousness follow from the fact that physics does not study what "is"? You seem to be saying that physics cannot study consciousness, therefore consciousness cannot be explained by science, therefore consciousness must be epiphenomenal on something that can be explained by science. Perhaps that's a misunderstanding. But this sort of argument, even when well made, never works, because it is impossible to prove that something that can be explained by science is not epiphenomenal on something that cannot be explained by science.

This goes back to Rosenberg's point, that the things science can explain cannot be shown to be more than collections of bare differences. In the final analysis there is nothing supporting the scientific model of the universe but an explanatory gap. That doesn't make the model completely wrong, but it's a problem that cannot be ignored for ever.

My support for this view is the massive amount of evidence that our apparent world that we are conscious of does not correspond closely to the world as we think it does, the .4 second gap between the time our brain starts our arm moving and the time we become aware of the stimulus for that move, the optical illusions, etc. etc.;

There are a number of valid objections to this interpretation of Libet's results, many discussed at length in the literature. Certainly those results do not show that we do not know what consciousness feels like. Also, those results (and others like them) tell us nothing about the ontology of consciousness.

in fact all the evidence amassed by Dennet in Consciousness Expained.

That bloody book again. What evidence are you referring to? There's certainly none that shows that Dennett is right in what he asserts about consciousness, and most of his reasoning does not stand up to even a superficial dispassionate analysis. I don't want to argue about the book, but I think its inneffectiveness is shown by the lack of impact it's had in consciousness studies.

Consciousness is not the way you think, and as a complex, unreliable phenomenon is quite unsuitable as a basis for philosophy.

Surely the point of researching into consciousness, whether by science, philosophy or meditative practice, is to get our thinking about it on the right track? If we were to dismiss consciousness as a subject for study because it was not what some people think it is then we'd have to dismiss the entities we study scientifically on exactly the same grounds. There may be nothing at all that's what we think it is.

Is consciousness an unreliable phenomenon? I don't know what 'unreliable' would mean in this context. I'd argue that it follows from the fact that solipsism is unfalsifiable that consciousness is the most philosophically reliable phenomenon that there is.

It doesn't seem to me that I have to come up with my own detailed account of being conscious in order to be mightily skeptical of anyone who says it is primary.

In a way. But the two sides of the debate are not quite equivalent. Those who argue that Being is fundamental assert that no detailed account can be given of our consciousness. They say that what it really is cannot be explained. Because of this it would be unreasonable, or pointless at least, to expect them to ever give such an account. The onus is therefore on those who say that it can be explained to show that it can be.

(This looks like a cop-out, but it is not. In this other view, Buddhism etc., the reasons that consciousness cannot be explained can be explained. That is, there is nothing mysterious about why C cannot be explained, it just follows logically from the way the world is. In other words, the proposition that consciousness is inexplicable in principle can be shown to be consistent with the proposition that consciousness is fundamental. It is only the thing in itself that cannot be fully explained).

Not everybody thinks that this assertion, that consciousness is inexplicable, is true. However nobody can show that it's false, so as a reason or excuse given by someone for not being explain consciousness despite their claiming to know that it is is fundamental it's perfect, and the assertion may be true as far as anybody can ever show.

On the other hand those who argue that consciousness is not-fundamental say that the fact of our being conscious can be explained, even if we cannot do so yet. So it is they who must come up with an explanation of it, or show that it is, in principle at least, possible to explain it. However so far all attempts to do this have become quickly enmired in metaphysical paradoxes, barriers to knowledge, explanatory gaps, undecidable questions and so on, just as those who take the other view predict they will.

Because of this I feel that someone who wants to argue that consciousness is not-fundamental must, before they get into the scientific detail of the explanation, start by showing that at least it is possible in principle to reduce consciousness to either mind or matter. As it is nobody has succeeded in doing this yet, which we can know from the fact that still many experts feel that the 'hard' problem is unsolvable.

It seems to me that the fact that solipsism is unfalsifiable is incontrovertible proof that we can never show that consciousness reduces to brain, or even more generally to matter, but I've never seen anyone using this argument so maybe I'm missing something.

Sorry - written too much again.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Just a couple of points.

About that "so". Obviously my belief is that whatever is non-vacuous about consciousness is something that can be studied by science, and it will therefore turn out to be about behavior. And BTW, I don't accept the GR characterization of studying relationships and behavior as "bare differences", since I don't grant that the "content" they are supoposed to be missing is real.

Next that Dennet's book has had no affect on consciousness studies. There is a whole school of people working in that tradition. Of course it appeals more to neurologists and such more than to the pure philosophers.

 

[Canute]

Rosenberg confuses this point a bit, though. On the one hand, he seems to mean "bare differences" as simply differences uninstantiated, without a grounding ontology. If that is the case, then yes, that is what physics studies. But to make his analogy with a Life world more cogent, he brings in the stipulation that "bare differences" mean differences that are defined circularly - 'on' is not 'off,' 'off' is not 'on.' This is not the way physical quantities are defined and so, in this sense, his analogy fails.

Yes, I don't like his use of the idea of 'bare differences' either. However it does seem to me that science defines differences circularly. It has to do this because it has nothing that is fundamental on which to ground its definitions so has to define things by their relationship to other things. This is not just a problem for science, to be fair. I suppose one could call it the human condition.

 

[Canute]

Just a couple of points.

About that "so". Obviously my belief is that whatever is non-vacuous about consciousness is something that can be studied by science, and it will therefore turn out to be about behavior. And BTW, I don't accept the GR characterization of studying relationships and behavior as "bare differences", since I don't grant that the "content" they are supposed to be missing is real.

I'm still baffled by the idea that conscious experience can be explained by reference only to behaviour. Behaviourism has been abandoned by most people (Dennett notwithstanding) and consciousness experiences are now generally assumed to exist. They are thus in need of an explanation. (If "non-vacuous" mean 'scientific' then your first sentence seems to be a tautology).

If the 'content' of scientific entities is not real then in what sense do these things exist except as dependent appearances or relative phenomena?

 

[Tournesol]

I'm still baffled by the idea that conscious experience can be explained by reference only to behaviour. Behaviourism has been abandoned by most people (Dennett notwithstanding) and consciousness experiences are now generally assumed to exist. They are thus in need of an explanation. (If "non-vacuous" mean 'scientific' then your first sentence seems to be a tautology).

The argument is that we always DO ascribe consc. to others on the basis
of their behaviour. On the other hand, we do ascribe CONSCIOUSNESS, an
inner mental life that doesn't have to be manifested in behaviour.

If the 'content' of scientific entities is not real then in what sense do these things exist except as dependent appearances or relative phenomena?

They exist as concrete mechanisms that give rise to apparent phenomena,
but are only described by physical theory as abstract structures and behaviours, with no information about their intrinsic nature being given. The
features of the map are not those of the territory, they only
have the same mutual relationship.

 

[Tournesol]

And BTW, I don't accept the GR characterization of studying relationships and behavior as "bare differences", since I don't grant that the "content" they are supoposed to be missing is real.

Surely there must be some content...bare differences cannot stand
on their own two feet, ontologically.

 

[Tournesol]

Thanks for the explanation Canute. I do grant this aspect of science, and my own belief is that the "ding an sich" is just as much a myth as the homonculus. I can't follow the reasoning that says "since empirical study of the world does not supply us with an ontology, let us derive one by thinking abstractly about consciousness". That is a traditional way to go of course (Hegel and successors) but I have never seen it lead anywhere productive.

There is a big difference between having no ontology, having one based
entirely on what we are directly aware of (consciousness) and having
one that includes consciousness among other things. If you take the third option, your ontology has to include substances and properties which are neither given by empircal
study of the external world nor directly as part of consciousness, and are
therefore "completely unknown to us". The "Ding an Sich" is a traditonal
label for this negative concept.

I'm guessing that "ding an sich" is thing-in-itself. If so then doesn't there have to be at least one thing that is a thing in itself? It seems to me that most things can have no 'in themselves' existence, as you suggest, and have only a dependent existence, but not absolutely everything, otherwise nothing could exist.

The TII is not a separate entity or class of entities. It stands
in contrast to the things-as-it-appears to us - they are both
ways of conceiving the same "thing". If you do not admit a TII
then everything has not only a dependent existence but an
existence which is dependent on us -- our consciousness
would be all-embracing (The 2nd of my 3 options). The TII is therefore a "limiting" concept.

All we are thinking about are 'bare differences'. However consciousness is 'what it is like', and as such is the one thing that we can explore without thinking abstractly about it. So in this respect it seems that we can know it as a thing in itself and therefore can, in principle at least, derive an ontology from it.

Or at least include it in an ontology.

 

[selfAdjoint]

Suppose I said to you, building an ontology is just as foolish as casting a horoscope, and you have as much value in the one as in the other when you get done? Not that I fully believe that, but it's the feeling I get when I hear people going on and on about it, as if it could constrain what we perceive and do.

 

[loseyourname]

Yes, I don't like his use of the idea of 'bare differences' either. However it does seem to me that science defines differences circularly. It has to do this because it has nothing that is fundamental on which to ground its definitions so has to define things by their relationship to other things. This is not just a problem for science, to be fair. I suppose one could call it the human condition.

Physical quantities aren't defined in a circular manner at least according to my understanding of the word "circular." They are generally defined as mathematical expressions that dictate the manner in which they interact. I suppose you mean that any quantity x is defined by its relationship to quantities y, z, and so on, while quantity y is defined by its relationship to quantities x, z and so on. In that sense I suppose they are defined circularly, although I didn't infer from the book that Rosenberg intended that sense (in fact, I would just use the physicist's language and say they are defined relative to a certain frame of reference and that there exists no absolute frame of reference). I also can't see how reference to a grounding ontology would necessarily alleviate the condition of this particular type of circular definition.

To be fair, string theorists do seem to be attempting to develop a theory of the intrinsic nature of fundamental units of reality, although it doesn't seem that they can say much about these units other than that they have the intrinsic properties of being strings that vibrate. They also have the problem of their ideas not necessarily being amenable to empirical investigation, although they may come up with a way around the difficulties they've had.

 

[Zantra]

Are you kidding me? He looks like Kate Winslet crossed with Jack Black.

ROFL you are SO dead on with that description

 

[Math Is Hard]

ROFL you are SO dead on with that description

whatever! I still think he's cute!

I am reading about "functionalism" now. From what I understand, functionalism says that we can learn what we need to know about the mind by observing behavior. It seems like a 'black box' point of view. We don't need to know how the machinery functions, just how the outputs (behavior) correspond to the inputs (stimuli). It seems like this is skirting the whole "mind-body interaction" issue.
Is this the scientific point of view then? - should we give up on understanding how a physical event causes a mental event and solely focus on which physical event causes which physical action(s) from the body?
I apologize if I sound naive or unclear. I am a beginner.

 

[honestrosewater]

The thoughts of another beginner:

If "x is not y" and "x is not x" have different meanings, "x" and "y" must have meaning by virtue of something other than the statement, "x is not y". How can a system tell the difference between "x is not y" and "x is not x" if it can't tell the difference between "x" and "y"?

How is replacing "x" and "y" with "on" and "off" different from replacing "x" and "y" with "this[/color]" and "this[/color]"?

If "this[/color] is not this[/color]" and "this[/color] is not this[/color]" have different meanings, "this[/color]" and "this[/color]" must have meaning by virtue of something other than the statement, "this[/color] is not this[/color]". How can a system tell the difference between "this[/color] is not this[/color]" and "this[/color] is not this[/color]" if it can't tell the difference between "this[/color]" and "this[/color]"?

If "on is not off" and "on is not on" have different meanings, "on" and "off" must have meaning by virtue of something other than the statement, "on is not off". How can a system tell the difference between "on is not off" and "on is not on" if it can't tell the difference between "on" and "off"?

If it's like something for a person to see this[/color], how is it not like something for a Life cell to be on? What is the flippin difference? Is it just a difference of complexity?

 

[Canute]

The situation seems to me to be something like this. We cannot show that anything has an inherent exitence (as a thing-in itself). There are therefore two options. The first option breaks down into two views; a) things do have an absolute existence as things in themselves but we will remain forever ignorant of what these things are, and be forever unable to prove that they exist (the scientific view) or - b) most things do not have an absolute existence (are 'bare differences) but at least one thing does and from this all the rest arise as epiphenomena or appearances (Rosenberg's view?). The second option, the 'middle way' view, is to say that we have a muddled notion of what 'existence' means, and this leads to all these problems.

Strangely the view closest to latter view seems to be Self-Adjoint's, who (correct me if I'm wrong SA) argues that things do not have any substance underlying their external or conceptual appearances. This is what people mean when they say that 'emptiness' is at the heart of everything.

 

[saltydog]

'emptiness' is at the heart of everything.

Nothing is everything? I'm missing out. I realize I'm a stranger in a strange land over here but that's just not happening with me. I tend to believe in Karl Popper: "we approach the truth asymptotically".

Can you explain, briefly, what "nothing is everything" means, or has someone already done so in an earlier post that I missed?

Thanks,
Salty

 

[Canute]

Yes, if you read it like that it's a nonsensical phrase. However in this context the term 'emptiness' does not mean nothing.

 

[saltydog]

Yes, if you read it like that it's a nonsensical phrase. However in this context the term 'emptiness' does not mean nothing.

I find "emptiness is at the heart of everything" very interesting and well, I went through them again (the above posts) and it's still not happening for me but that's ok. I'm a neophyte about these things I know. But I do have an idea about it I may post as a separate link. Please tolerate my ignorance everyone. I don't wish to behave inappropriate here . . .

 

[loseyourname]

I find "emptiness is at the heart of everything" very interesting and well, I went through them again (the above posts) and it's still not happening for me but that's ok. I'm a neophyte about these things I know. But I do have an idea about it I may post as a separate link. Please tolerate my ignorance everyone. I don't wish to behave inappropriate here . . .

He's referring to the possibility that all of reality is built up through relational structures of differences, but without any grounding material substance that holds the differences. I still think that it sounds pretty nonsensical myself even when it is put that way, but there are those who consider it a possibility. Well, I shouldn't say that. Some kind of non-material substance can hold the differences, but it certainly seems like something has to.

 

[selfAdjoint]

The situation seems to me to be something like this. We cannot show that anything has an inherent exitence (as a thing-in itself). There are therefore two options. The first option breaks down into two views; a) things do have an absolute existence as things in themselves but we will remain forever ignorant of what these things are, and be forever unable to prove that they exist (the scientific view) or - b) most things do not have an absolute existence (are 'bare differences) but at least one thing does and from this all the rest arise as epiphenomena or appearances (Rosenberg's view?). The second option, the 'middle way' view, is to say that we have a muddled notion of what 'existence' means, and this leads to all these problems.

Strangely the view closest to latter view seems to be Self-Adjoint's, who (correct me if I'm wrong SA) argues that things do not have any substance underlying their external or conceptual appearances. This is what people mean when they say that 'emptiness' is at the heart of everything.

I did not say they have no "substance" or "ontological reality" or however you want to call it. I said that science has not found any, and as the mainsteam of it is currently configured, isn't looking for any. But if there is any such thing, it will be found by scientists probing deeper, not by people trying to derive it from their mental exxperiences.

Some current theories (not the standard ones yet, but scientific, not crank) have proposed some underlying reality with everything else being relationships within that reality. The realitiy might be a cellular mechanism underlying spacetime, or spin foams underlying spacetime, or whatever. Or a truly relational theory might have space and time just relations between things, which have prior reality. Theorizing beyond current data is a legitimate function within science.

If the ultimate TOE ever comes about, and there is truly some reality underlying what we can measure, then that reality will have its place in it.

 

[Canute]

Self-Adjoint

I don't really want to keep arguing, and maybe we should just agree to disagree. But this seems an odd post to me. You say science is not looking for any 'ultimate' or 'true' reality. I agree with this, and there seems to be general agreement on it, since it's a inevitable consequence of the way science is done. But then you say that eventually a scientific TOE will tell us all about this ultimate reality. What is going to change between then and now that will allow science to do this? Plato, Kant and most other philosophers and many physicists say it will never happen, and their arguments seem unassailable to me.

Despite the inability of science to tell us anything about what is real (fundamental, absolute) you say that in the end science will tell us all about it, and that exploring ones own inner experiences is a waste of time in this respect, even though the only thing whose existence we can be sure of are our own experiences. It's not easy to see how you reach these conclusions.

Doesn't it seem likely that if there is an underlying reality, which of course there must be, and if all the things which we study scientifically exist in dependence upon this thing, exist relative to it, as you say is possible, then this 'underlying reality' cannot be just another scientific entity. Otherwise that would have to exist relative to something else, and so on ad infinitum. Turtles on turtles again.

I'd say that Alan Guth's attempts to develop a theory of ex nihilo creation, and Stephen Hawking conclusion that physics cannot be completed, suggest that it is no good us waiting for science to tell us about reality. On the evidence we'll be waiting forever.

You seem completely opposed to any idea that we can know anything beyond science. Yet we know that what we want to know about reality is beyond science, for this is the only reason that metaphysics exists. How then can you justify your position?

He's referring to the possibility that all of reality is built up through relational structures of differences, but without any grounding material substance that holds the differences. I still think that it sounds pretty nonsensical myself even when it is put that way, but there are those who consider it a possibility.

It does sound pretty nonsensical from many perspectives. But most people (all people?) who have ever claimed to know anything about this have asserted that what is ultimate transcends the difference between material and immaterial. This is no proof of anything of course, but it's suggestive. What is also suggestive is that if this is not true then we are left with a choice between ex nihilo creation and an infinite regression of physical substances as an explanation of the origins of the universe, or of the ontology of mind and matter, and both these views seem to contradict reason to most people. The question is therefore considered undecidable. So, to be fair, although the idea seems nonsensical so do the alternatives.

 

[selfAdjoint]

I don't really want to keep arguing, and maybe we should just agree to disagree.

Yes, I think that's best. This post is only for clarification.

But this seems an odd post to me. You say science is not looking for any 'ultimate' or 'true' reality. I agree with this, and there seems to be general agreement on it, since it's a inevitable consequence of the way science is done.

No, only of the contigent current state of science, mostly driven by the kind of data available.

But then you say that eventually a scientific TOE will tell us all about this ultimate reality. What is going to change between then and now that will allow science to do this?

One path would be for theorists to develop a true TOE, which is falsifiable through experimental predictions, but also of its necessary nature makes statements about what reality is. That is, its logical structure is to be such that you can't have the experimental predictions without the assertions about reality. Quantum mechanics almost behaves this way (asserting "reality is quantized" and making excallent experimental predictions), but not quite, because the split between its unitary physics and the highly nonlinear projection to real probabilities undercuts it's assertion.

Plato, Kant and most other philosophers and many physicists say it will never happen, and their arguments seem unassailable to me.

As to the philosophers, who cares? They disagree with each other and form no constraint on physics development. As to the many physicists, name three since 1950. No sorry, we weren't going to dispute anymore, but obviously I am skeptical of this statement. Maybe start a new thread ?

 

[Canute]

Yeah that might be interesting. To answer your question I'd have to root around a bit to check my facts, but Stephen Hawking comes to mind. Does Scroedinger count as post-1950? Karl Pribram probably qualifies as well, and Franco Varella, but I'm not quite sure of them. And Greg Rosenberg of course, if he counts as a scientist. I'll think about it and try and get some more sorted. It's quite an interesting little research project.